In an audio mixer operating with multiple microphones, multiple microphone signals may be processed by gating. For example, some of the microphones may be muted by gating when active talkers are not detected with these microphones. This approach has a few disadvantages. First, fluctuations in perceived timbre and sound level are fairly noticeable perceptually when microphones are switched between a muted state and an unmuted state by gating. These audio artifacts can be fairly pronounced especially when there is either a false-negative miss of an active talker or a false-positive detection of a non-existent active talker. Second, when multiple talkers from different microphones are active at the same time, the noise and reverberation levels in the audio mix generated by the audio mixer tend to increase.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section. Similarly, issues identified with respect to one or more approaches should not assume to have been recognized in any prior art on the basis of this section, unless otherwise indicated.